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Tag Archives: so delicious

I make! Lamb neck stew edition

Right now if I reach blindly into my freezer and pull something out, I’d say there’s an 80% chance that I’ll pull out some kind of salmon.  But this post isn’t about salmon.  It’s about lamb neck.  Because before pulling out all of the lamb neck in the freezer, I’d say there was an 18% chance that I’d pull out lamb neck in were I to blindly reach into the freezer and grab something.  Because…my mother.

So, I’ve been trying to get rid of lamb neck.  But lamb neck is kind of a weird cut of…meat(?) to work with.  It’s pretty easy to figure out what to do with chops or ribs or something, but what about lamb neck?  Well, I opted for stew.

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I did a fairly standard stew with things that go well with lamb.  I coated the lamb neck (about 2lb) in flour (about 0.33c) and then browned them (I used an electric pressure cooker, which has a sear function) and took them out.  With the leftover fat in the pot, I sautéed a bunch of chopped celery, carrots, and onions (whatever I had on hand) and then coated the vegetables with the rest of the flour leftover from dredging the lamb.  Added some chopped potatoes (also whatever I had on hand), salt, pepper, dried thyme (about 2tsp).  I nestled the lamb on top of the vegetables and then added 3-4c of chicken stock and a bunch of Worcestershire sauce.  I cooked it on high pressure for about 45min.  I’m really liking the pressure cooker guys.  But I’ve also done it on the slow cooker before, 3-4 hours on high or 6-8 hours on low.  But seriously.  Pressure cooker.

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I ended up serving it with focaccia and salad.

I make! Cranberry hand pie edition

Remember how I had extra pie dough after making the personal apple pies?  I decided to make toaster pastries with the leftover dough…but then that changed into hand pies because it was easier for me to punch out rounds from the dough and I have a tendency to overstuff things.

After making the pies, I ended up lumping the leftover dough back into a ball and sticking it back in the fridge.  I came back to it a day later and rolled out a 1/4″-thick sheet and punched out 3.5″ circles.  I rolled the circles out to a thickness of about 1/8″ and then plopped in a tablespoon or so of super-reduced cranberry preserves (my typical cranberry sauce reduced to the point where a scoop of it will pretty much just stick to the spoon when held upside down and yes I still have cranberry sauce because I buy a lot of cranberries when I’m able to get them and then stick them in the freezer because I’m immensely fond of cranberries).  I brushed the edges of the bottom crust with some water and stuck another round on top and crimped the edges with a fork.  I also had a weird lump of dough left after punching out all the circles, so I just rolled it out so that it was mostly symmetrical and filled it and folded it over on itself.

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I brushed milk over the hand pies and put them in the oven at 425degF for 20min and then reduced the temp to 375degF and baked them for another 20ish min.  I didn’t sprinkle sugar over the top, but I think I will next time.  I don’t make my cranberry preserves very sweet so I think maybe a little extra sugar on the crust would be nice for next time.

The resultant pies were pretty.  Using a super-reduced filling really helped.  I was half afraid that I would have some volcanic blowout like I normally do when I bake with cranberry.  There was only some slight oozing this time.  NBD.  The crust browned very nicely and puffed up a bit like puff pastry, which is the main reason why I ended up calling them hand pies instead of toaster pastries.  I don’t think you’d be able to fit them into a toaster slot.

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Also, they tasted pretty good.  But really, it’s pie crust and cranberry.  How are you going to go wrong there?